


We Made it to the Ocean

by palentic



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, POV Eren Yeager, Slow Build, attack on titan - Freeform, snk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:33:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palentic/pseuds/palentic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren tries to come to terms with destroying the only thing that ever made him happy as he finds himself trapped in the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Made it to the Ocean

The sky was vast, and my eyes felt blinded without the cover of trees. Without the shield of the walls. Without the weight in my chest that had always been part of who we were. The water roared, filling my ears with blood. My pulse was pounding in rhythm with my feet across the sand. I wanted to tell you, "That book never did this justice, can you believe this?!" 

But you weren't beside me. There was no one beside me.

I could feel my skin igniting under the heat of the sun. Under the weight of everything that had brought me here. Itching, wishing to unzip, a longing to escape my own identity. 

"Forgive me," I whispered to no one. 

I knelt on the shore, wet sand adhering to my bruised knees. The water began to turn red as the waves wrapped around me, gently. It was as if the very ocean wanted to comfort me. This only made me think of you.

I could hear the crunching of sand, but I couldn't find strength enough inside me to even lift my head. My arms dropped to my sides, my spine curved forward. There was a scream somewhere in my throat, but I couldn't quite get it out. My only weapons lay in the sand beside me covered in blood, not my own, from actions I could never repent for. The worst part is that even as I killed you, I couldn't find any hatred in your eyes. Even in the end, you couldn't find it in yourself to lash out against me.

An anger was filling me, making my bones crunch and my blood boil. But I would never change again, because nothing could ever bring me back if I did. I would wander forever, acting out in desperation and self-hatred. I would destroy the thing I had always wanted to save, the thing I had lost in myself, humanity. I may have gotten outside the walls, far away like we had always dreamed, but I was still a prisoner. 

What was the point of making it to the ocean without you by my side?

Footsteps began to shake the ground and I imagined the earth splitting apart and pulling me inside; clutching me and dragging me deeper and deeper. I gripped onto the fear that was filling my stomach as tightly as I could. I wanted to feel the way you did. I didn't deserve to feel at peace. You never would, all because of me.


	2. You were my Sunshine

Flashback

 

"Eren?"

Orange-red blinded me behind closed eyes as the sun began to stream in the window. Warm air rhythmically caressed my collar bone, my shoulder firm beneath blonde hair. I felt fingers, soft and small, slowly tracing shapes on my bare stomach; leaving a trail of goose bumps. I couldn't bring myself to respond or even open my eyes. This moment was one of few that we would have together in peace for a while. 

I felt him shift, the pressure on my shoulder relieved with a jolt of blood rushing back into my arm. Warm air rushed over my face for a moment, followed by a pressure on my lips. My eyes opened, involuntarily, and I raised my hand gently to his cheek. Armin pulled away upon my touch, face reddening. 

 

"What time is it?" I asked, suppressing both a yawn and a slight smile. 

He furrowed his brows together, clumsily clambering to my other side. 

"It looks like the sun isn't raised all of the way, so the others are probably still sleeping...." he paused before adding, "we still have a few hours until the expedition. Levi will most likely want to ta-" 

I pulled him back to me, my hands tangled in his bedhead. He always tried to keep a steady and calm demeanor, but I could hear the slight treble in his voice. I wished he wasn't so scared. I would always protect him. 

With that thought, I pressed my lips to his with a sudden ferocity. He and I both knew that he was physically weaker than the others, and despite his smart mind making up for it, I couldn't help but worry. Especially on days like today when we had expeditions. Clenching my fist in his hair, I pulled him beneath me as I hovered over him, my knees pressing against his hips. 

I could hear him make a low noise, and my hands started to shake.

"Eren, I-" He gasped, "Please." 

I was throbbing as I unbuttoned his shirt, at first slowly, but then erratically with frustration. I felt one of the buttons snap off the thread, flinging off the bed and bouncing on the floor. He sat up slightly, shrugging his arms awkwardly out of sleeves too long for him anyway. My tongue traced along his chest, slowly drawing circles alone slightly protruding ribs. He shuddered beneath me as I worked my way to the hem of his pants. His hands gripped my hair, as if he were strong enough to make me go any faster than I was. 

His frantic heartbeat, struggling breathing, shaking hands-- 

"Eren, the others," he took in a shuddering breath as I let out a long sigh, "... the others... the others will be looking for us soon, and I-" his speech broke off as I gently brushed against him with my palm. 

"Do you always have to be so logical?" I breathed into his ear, before sliding off the bed. 

I could feel his eyes on me, and I involuntarily bit my lip. 

* * *

I stared at the titan, momentarily overtaken with the fear of my death. Realization of the pain I would soon experience washed over me. My fear dimmed as I compared this to the pain you had experienced. 

I couldn't stop reliving you.

Maybe I didn't deserve, or even want, to escape you. You were my only virtue. These memories of you were my only value.

 

 


	3. You Called them Constellations

Flashback

"I will always protect you."

I always told you that. On nights when your lip would tremble, ever so slightly, and you would grip my hand in an attempt to keep me close. Those were the nights when we would sneak out, and lay beneath the tree that we had grown to call our own over the years, and stare up at the sky. I couldn't ever forget the time you told me about the stars, and how people used to make shapes out of them. I think you called them constellations; you said they told the stories of humanity. You would point, trying to get me to see people and creatures and symbols-- long lost in a dark sky where I could only see a void. I always pretended to see them though, always trying to reflect the light emanated in your eyes. 

You told me, that people used to follow the stars when they would get lost. I remember never being able to grasp this world being big enough to get lost in. Without you, I can finally understand.

"Do you believe in hell?" You asked me later that same night. Or maybe it was a different night, under that same damned tree. Our tree. 

I told you no. I couldn't imagine that anything could be worse than being trapped in those walls. That anything could be worse than waiting to die. 

* * *

 

I didn't have to imagine anymore.

I wish I would have asked you everything, and tried harder to see those stars you used to love. I wish I would have told you that I loved you, but we never said things like that aloud. I wish I could have protected you, but it turned out that the only danger you were in was from me.

The sun was setting, and I wondered how long I had been sitting here. Waiting. But the titan still didn't kill me. It only watched. I wondered if it knew that I was meant to suffer. I wondered if there was a God, after all. And I hoped, only for a second, that you had gone to hell after all-- because we both knew I wasn't going to go to heaven after everything I had caused.

 

 


	4. I Killed Him

 

 

> "Eren!"

I didn't look up from the water. I couldn't stop staring at the full moon and all of the stars reflected onto it's surface. I wished I could remember the stories you used to tell me. I had grown to accept that, for whatever reason, the titan wasn't interested in me. 

Rough hands started shaking my shoulders, but I couldn't make any noise come out. I wanted to ask about the others, and if they knew what had happened. If they were there. If they knew what I had done. 

"Goddamn it! Eren, come on!" 

Jean. It was Jean.

"Eren, we have to get out of here! Damn it, you are going to get everyone else killed and I-" He stopped himself, something rare. I had turned to face him, and maybe he hadn't known what happened after all. "Eren, where is Armin?" His voice was softer, but not to be confused with gentle. 

I felt my hands start to shake, and a scream erupted from my throat. Jean punched me; a haze of red, black, and blue erupting as I felt my nose break. I remained silent. 

"You aren't going to hit me back?" He finally asked, his tone incredulous. I only shook my head. "You know," he said after another pause, "Levi won't talk to anyone about what happened. He didn't even tell anyone to go looking for you. I think they assumed you died." 

So Levi had seen me kill him. I knew it, and yet for some reason I had started to hope that maybe I hadn't done it after all. That maybe his blood had gotten on me by chance. That maybe his ripped cloak, a few yards away from me because I couldn't handle looking at it anymore, had been in my hands by chance when I regained consciousness. That since I couldn't remember anything that had happened, maybe the worst hadn't come to be. 

"What made you think I wasn't dead?" I couldn't bring myself to even try to sound like I was put together. It didn't matter if Jean thought I was weak anymore. In fact, part of me hoped he would kill me once he found out what I had done.

"It just seemed unlikely. If you were dead, I feel like Levi just would have said so," he took a deep breath, irritation seeping into his tone, "which is why I feel like something happened, in your group, on that expedition."

I closed my eyes. So Armin never made it back to the others. Armin was dead and--

"I killed him."

There was another silence.

"I don't understand." 

I think that was all he knew to say, because he would never understand. I couldn't even understand. I had lost control. It was what everyone had always feared, and maybe they should have killed me all those years ago. Levi should have never advocated for me. I should never have been so arrogant.

"I killed him. I killed Armin." My tone was flat, matter of fact. Somehow, saying it out loud made it seem less real. Like, if I said it enough times, to the right person, I could be proven wrong. Or that I would wake up, because Armin couldn't be dead. 

"No you didn't. You couldn't have always expected yourself to protect him. It's just as much his fault as anyone else's in your group if... if he died. And it's not like he is the first one of us to die, Eren. I doubt he will be the last." I could hear Jean's voice shaking slightly. It had been a while since one of our initial group had died. The more years of experience we gained, the more invulnerable we started to feel. The worst part, was that he didn't automatically assume that I meant what I was very literally trying to say. Even Jean didn't take me as the murderer that I was.

"I don't mean that I didn't protect him. I mean that I, well I think that I--... I killed him. I lost control and I can't remember what happened and-" I broke off, a few tears starting to run down my cheeks. I brushed them away angrily, turning away from his confused gaze. It didn't matter, I was sure that once he believed me he would kill me.

"Eren, I really don't think-" I heard him sigh loudly, "look, we need to get back, okay? Even if you... even if you ki-... even if he is dead... we can't deal with it here." His tongue skittered around the word "killed," as if it left a sour taste in his mouth. I remembered the time that Armin saved his life, firing the shot that he couldn't.

* * *

 I don't remember the ride back to camp, but it took most of the night even by horseback. The sun was starting to peak through the trees, pink and lilac staining my vision, as we put the horses back into the stable. We had hardly run into any titans on the way back, which was unusual. He didn't say anything to me about it though. He didn't say anything at all.

"Eren?"

I turned, my inner thigh sore from riding horseback for so long. 

"You can't...," he closed his eyes for a moment, his jaw tightening, "you can't always let yourself take the blame for everything."

And then he walked away, saying something about dealing with this after he got some "goddamn sleep."


	5. Our Tree

I went to the old tree that night. It was only a few miles away, and it was the only thing I had left. During that walk, I wondered if you were a ghost now. I couldn't decide if that would be comforting or not. I wondered if you made it back to our tree before you passed on. 

I liked to think that you did.

Half-assed carvings, typical cliché ones, of our initials were shrouded by vines. We were drunk that night off some really potent and homemade stuff Jean had made. Not for us, obviously, but we took liberty anyway. Looking back, I couldn't help but wish I hadn't drank so much because maybe then I'd be able to remember the way your hand felt against mine while we shakily pressed my blade into that tree. 

I had no nightmares that night, surprisingly, and it gave me great comfort to pretend that this could somehow be attributed to you. That no matter what horrendous act I had committed, this tree would always be ours. No evil could be here. You used to say that you didn't need a home more special than our tree and the stars. Always those damned stars. 

Instead, I dreamed that night as I looked into the sky that I could see you. You used to tell me that constellations were sometimes people who had died. Heroes, mostly, I think. You died without knowing that you were a hero in this story too; we all were. I wished I was better at connecting the dots, because knowing you we somewhere up there killed me. That the shape I had seen so fleetingly could fade into the background light made my chest ache. 

\-------

"Eren."

I turned, expecting the voice to be yours even though it was much deeper. I was still disappointed. 

"How did you find me?" This was our place. For Jean, of all people, to come here, made my chest feel tight. It was illogical since this place wasn't geologically special, and was hardly private. But it still was to me. It was to us. 

"You never went back to your bunk last night. I asked Mikasa about you at breakfast and she," he grimaced for a moment, "she hadn't realized you had even returned. None of the others did, actually." He rubbed the back of his head absently, where I figured she had let him have it. 

I almost smiled.

"And then," he continued, "you go off like a jackass for a morning stroll. Meanwhile, everyone is all over me, thinking I made up the whole thing or something." His face was puffing up slightly, his blood pressure very clearly rising. And he thought I was the jackass. 

"I didn't realize it was my responsibility to announce not being dead." My tone was flat, not at all laced with the irritation I had hoped for. 

"Snap out of your angst, you self-obsessed, suicidal, ma-" 

I don't remember making a fist, or even the conscious decision to use it, but my knuckles cut off the rest of his sentence. His head snapped to the side, with purple following red spreading across his swollen cheekbone. 

"Did you just... hit me?" His tone was almost skeptical, as if he someone hadn't literally just firsthand had the experience of being hit. 

"You weren't exactly a spectator, you ass." A venomous anger, previously internalized, gave my tone some animation. 

He raised his own fist, taking a swing but only barely clipping my jawline. Another swing, and my head was swimming. I could feel my body shaking, my eyes hazing over with a faint red. 

"Get up."

I hadn't realized I was on the ground. When had I become so weak? Stumbling to my feet, I lunged forward, knocking Jean onto his back. Grass ripped under my feet, scuffing the sides of my boots with dirt. His eyes narrowed, his entire back likely covered in grass, like mine, still wet with morning dew. 

"Do you have a death wish, Eren?" He scowled, his jaw tightening in a way that, for some reason, made my stomach fill with air. He swung his leg, still on the ground, smacking my achilles tendon. 

I fell forward, my foot flopping into itself, onto my face. Warm dirt, with strands of uprooted grass, forced it's way into my mouth, making me gag. I closed my eyes, grimacing in pain, waiting for my body to heal. That bastard got me good. 

"Shit, I didn't mean to get your tendon, ahm..." I could almost hear the attempt to not be cocky leeching into his voice, "well... you have your healing thing anyway, so it doesn't actually matter." And there it was. 

I stood, my movements suddenly much more fluid, in spite of the world starting to spin. 

"Eren, maybe we should stop." But his tone wasn't of concern, it was pity, which only made me angrier. I didn't need Jean Kirschstein's pity. 

I tightened my hand into the smallest fist I could make, blood rushing to my head, before hitting him consecutively enough times to make him stumble backwards. Blood was running down his face, his nose likely in the process, if not already, of being broken. One of his eyes swelled slightly-- soon it would match the purple already highlighting his left cheek. 

Suddenly he grabbed my wrists, even in his injury towering over me. I could feel his anger, radiating in waves of attempted self-control. 

"Let go of me! What are you? Some kind of wimp who can start a fight and not finish it, huh?"

He only shook his head. I could see in his eyes that he felt sorry for me. I wanted him to die because of it.

To die? I shook my head, involuntarily taking a step away from him, his grip on my wrists still firm. Was one murder not enough to sate me?

Jean lifted me then, very literally slamming me against a tree. I could feel small splinters ripping into my cloak, into the back of my head. The tree was small, I could hear a branch snap, and then I realized. I had brought evil to our tree. I would never rest seemingly, until I destroyed, not only you, but everything you had ever had the audacity to care about in this stupid world. 

"You done?"

I was shaking as I turned away from him, crumpled, and rested my forehead against the now bloodstained wood. I wished that it's vines would wrap around me, like they did around our names, holding me here forever. I think that if you were here, you would have said I was being melodramatic. Or reckless. Or maybe even an idiot.

I doubted that last one.

"If you are done trying to fight me, can we just head back?" His request sounded more like a whine than a question. Maybe it was the blood running into his mouth. 

"You can head back."

He put his arms up above his head in frustrated disbelief. 

"Do you want Mikasa to kill me?" he frowned before adding, "to kill you?"

I pictured Mikasa, thinking that not only had Armin died, but so had I. I imagined her feeling as if she had truly lost everyone. The hole in my chest became deeper. 

"Fine."


End file.
